Brittony Johnson

three poems

Let Me Stain Your Sheets

Your white Egyptian sheets
are now stained with blood.
- Mine, from a midnight past -

The brass lamp on the end tables
- overturned -
Not noticed in the moment.

At a glance,
the sense of struggle.

Still the leather straps hang,
from the four posts cherry frame
of your bed.
Longing for feet and wrist.

The smells of oils
- and sex -
almost gone from the air.

Ravage me!
Oh, muse of sexual excursions.

Leave me swollen,
bloodied,
bruised,
and in want for more cotton sheets to stain.

A Man and His Guitar

I had to be at the subway by five,
had to.
I couldn’t be late.
I couldn’t miss my train.
At four forty five,
I bounced down an eternity of stairs.
Lowering into a hobos haven.
I sat on a bench and watched the people,
all going somewhere.
Some were late for meetings.
Winos taking turns in human degradation .
Perhaps a few are headed home for
home cooked meals.
One man….
early in his thirties,
stood near to where I sat.
He was strumming an acoustic guitar.
A Calvin Klein advertisement behind us.
The case of his guitar lay open,
exposing the red velor interior.
Money lay inside haphazardly.
His eyes were closed.
He played each chord from inside his mind.
Feeling the strings with his heart.
He let the music just be.
He wasn’t standing here in Levi’s,
trying to make a dollar.
He only wanted all these people,
for just one moment in time,
to stop and listen.
To the sounds of wood and nickel strings.
The sounds of life he gently strummed.
As my train arrived,
I dropped a twenty dollar bill inside his splendid red.
I wondered if I’d ever hear him on the radio
as I rushed on the train that led to my next ten hour shift.

Flights of Fancy

I needed for a moment
to be looked at like Venus
in a Botticelli painting
to be touched
like a sculpture
seeking perfection in art
to be hungered for
like a vampires first kill
do not worry love